Don’t Give Money To Beggars At Christmas Say Bastards Who Run Homelessness Charities

Nasty posters like these have become a regular feature in some cities in over the Christmas period.

Homelessness charities in two cities have decided to spread some Christmas love by urging people not to give money to homeless beggars in the cold Winter months.

A campaign spearheaded by Liverpool Council, with the backing of some local charities and the police, warns that “Your Kindness Could Kill” because many homeless people spend all their money on drugs or alcohol. Elsewhere in Bath the message is more explicit, warning that the city has a reputation for being “easy to beg in” which could harm the town “socially and economically”.

These nasty campaigns began in 2003 when several London charities including Thamesreach and St Mungos teamed up with Tory Westminster Council to produce posters warning that beggars spend all their money drugs. The message from the charities was clear, give the money to us instead. Those whopping charity Chief Executive salaries won’t pay themselves.

There was a time when homelessness charities fought against this kind of lazy stereo-typing of homeless people who often face verbal and even physical abuse on the streets. They might even have argued that addiction is an illness and not one that will be cured by making life even harder for those affected. These days however they are squarely behind the ludicrous notion that the very worst thing you can do for someone in poverty is give them what they need – which is some money.

No-one’s life is going to be saved by a hot mug of soup or a quid from a passer by. But it might just mean that person has a mildly less shit day because of the kindness of strangers. And that applies whatever they spend the money on, which is as likely to be hostel service charges as drugs or alcohol. Benefit sanctions and brutal social security cuts mean that more people than ever are likely to be begging for food or to put the heating on this Christmas. They are just collateral damage however in this moral campaign to hide homelessness away and stop shoppers being bothered.

If these campaigns are successful and less money is given to beggars over the Christmas period then all that will mean is that those who were begging for food will go hungry and people with substance dependencies will have to beg for longer. Or turn to other far more dangerous ways of making money, such as sex work or crime. Nobody is going to suddenly come off heroin because of a few bad days begging. Addiction doesn’t work that way, as these charities are well aware.

The sad truth is that Killing With Kindness campaigns have little to do with getting people off the streets and more to do with fundraising over the lucrative festive period. Homelessness organisations, in particular the Big Issue who back the Bath campaign, are in direct competition for funds with people begging on the street. They know that some people don’t trust charities and would rather give direct help. They are using these campaigns to try and guilt trip the public into changing their behaviour in the nastiest way possible by pretending that if you give some money to a beggar it will kill them.

It’s never even occurred to the Ned Flanders wannabes running homeless charities that some people don’t care if beggars spend their money on drink or drugs. Few people are heartless enough to begrudge a homeless person a drink at Christmas, even if they are a fucking alcoholic. It’s not like those in charge of these charities are planning on opening up emergency detox centres on Christmas Eve. They’ll be too busy getting pissed along with everyone else.

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144 responses to “Don’t Give Money To Beggars At Christmas Say Bastards Who Run Homelessness Charities”

Reblogged this on Wirral In It Together and commented:
Liverpool Council and others step in to divert your cash AWAY from homeless people and into the deep pockets of “Charity” bosses on six figure salaries…

2) Claimants were told by Ministers that the “face to face”
assessment process was required to ensure that people were getting
the correct level of benefits and in the majority of cases, only a
F2F assessment would provide for this. Why then is it being
conducted mainly on the phone where the HCP has no knowledge of
body language, facial expression or indeed physical impact on the
claimant?

Oh bollocks Johnny. Have you ever had any direct contact with street outreach teams? Do you realise how hard it is to direct these people to services where they can actually get help? How many fucking people do you think sleep on the streets as a lifestyle choice because they couldn’t get a place at a hub or temporary accomodation?

Seeing as you tacitly accept that the money you give them goes straight on drugs or booze (and anyone who’s worked with these people knows it does) why don’t you cut out the middle man and inject the smack straight into their veins for them?

Quite a few people sleep on the streets because they have dogs that the hostels won’t accept, quite arbitrarily regardless of the dog’s nature. (There are a few dog-friendly hostels in Edinburgh, but the demand exceeds the supply.) This is not a ‘lifestyle choice’, unless you apply that trivializing label to something known as love.

Well Christ baby, of course you don’t want people giving the homeless who are forced to beg, any cash at all. Because if they did, there would be less money to pay your wages and the epic salaries of those at the top of the parasitic charity tree wouldn’t there? Then you might find yourself in the same position as the homeless souls you patronise on the street.

You appear to have named yourself after the wrong person. Last guy I heard of by the name of Christ had more compassion in his little finger than you will EVER have in your pathetic life. I hope for your sake you NEVER end up on the streets and have to put up with the kind of shit that the homeless face every day.

The following number of staff earned more than £60,000 during the year:

£80,000 – £89,000 = 1
£60,000 – £79,000 = 4

From the thamesreach.org.uk 2013 – 2014 shareholders report:

The number of employees whose annual emoluments were £60,000 or more were:

£90,001 – £100,000 = 1
£70,001 – £80,000 = 3

I think that rather than add to those people’s pockets, who no doubt have a home and lifestyle I can only dream of, I’ll just carry on buying a coffee and a sausage roll for the homeless guy I see every now and again in town. Because it could easily be me.

Hear hear Nina – exactly what I will keep on doing. And as for posters from “Charities” telling me what to do with my money – well stuff ’em, I’ll do whatever I like.
Gets ready to go to the local recycling center to get yet more warm coats and blankets, as well as shoes and boots to give to the homeless.

No doubt the same sort of cruel, inhumane legislation that exists in many cities in the “good ‘ol US of A”, where it’s actually an imprisonable offence not only to give money but food to the homeless, will soon be enacted upon these shores; it will make the UK’s 1824 Vagrancy Act appear almost compassionate in comparison.

Anyhow, I don’t want hypocritical charities dictating to me who I can and cannot give money to. Perhaps they should stick to handing out awards to murderous war criminals like Tony Blair and shut the f**k up!

UK Government welfare reforms are “pushing people to breaking point” in communities throughout Scotland, according to a new report.

The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) said cuts are having a “devastating” impact on individuals and the charities that help them.

Benefit claimants face depression, fear and anxiety as a result of changes to the system, a report by the umbrella body for voluntary organisations in Scotland found.

SCVO said the findings backed up calls for the devolution to Holyrood of more welfare powers than were recommended by the Smith Commission last week.

It also called for an end to benefit sanctions in Scotland, saying people were being punished unfairly in the current system.

The body wants action to increase access for people to jobs paying the living wage as well as clearer information for claimants to help them avoid sanctions.

Its report said: “Inflexible assessment processes, poor understanding of families’ circumstances and the threat of continual reassessment is heaping stress and anxiety on to people, negatively affecting their health and leading families to destitution.

“Sanctions are being applied more frequently, sometimes without any understanding of the real barriers to people finding employment.

“The threat of sanctions combined with benefit delays is pushing some people to extreme lengths, including re-offending and suicide attempts.

“The day-to-day struggle to survive is pushing people to breaking point.”

The SCVO said disabled people and women experiencing domestic violence were particularly at risk, with the changes affecting their ability to enter the labour market and lead independent lives.

The report added: “Families and communities are in real crisis, many are already barely scraping by and some are left without any income.

“This must be addressed as a matter of urgency.”

The organisation said an increasing number of people were seeking support from charities and funding was not keeping up with demand, with frontline workers struggling to keep up with benefit changes.

Commenting on the report, John Downie, SCVO director of public affairs, said: “It amplifies the many calls for the devolution of more power over welfare than promised by the Smith Commission, in order to take a different approach which, instead of punishing people, gives them the support they need when they need it most.

“People are being sanctioned for circumstances beyond their control.

“This is completely unacceptable and we want to see an end to all sanctions in Scotland immediately.

“We also need more investment in frontline third sector organisations so that they are in a better position to support people bearing the brunt of welfare cuts.

“Many charities and third sector organisations are being overwhelmed by demand from the most vulnerable people in our communities who are struggling to cope owing to these unfair changes.”

The body carried out interviews with charities and community groups at locations across Scotland and conducted an online survey in summer 2014.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has been accused of breaking the “letter and spirit” of the Smith Commission, after it emerged that lucrative Work Programme contracts are to be extended.

The Smith Commission, set up in the wake of the Scottish independence referendum, recommended that control over the Work Programme should be devolved to Holyrood “on expiry of the current commercial arrangements”.

However, it has now emerged the DWP has taken the decision to extend the contracts without the consent of the Scottish Government, despite cross-party agreement powers over the back-to-scheme scheme would be devolved.

Commercial contracts are due to expire in 2016 and this is when the Scottish Government expected powers to be devolved, until they learned yesterday that the contracts are to be extended for a further year.

TOO RIGHT GEOFF, TIME FOR THAT FUCKING SCOTTISH ‘PARLIAMENT’ TO GET OFF IT’S FUCKING ARSE AND IMPROVE THE LIVES OF THE SCOTTISH PEOPLE BY BRINGING THEM UP TO THE STANDARD THAT THE NORDIC AND SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRIES ENJOY INSTEAD OF FUCKING AROUND WITH THE DRINK LIVE LIMIT TO CATCH POOR BASTARDS OUT DRIVING TO WORK THE NEXT DAY AND HAVE THEIR LIVES FUCKED UP BY THOSE POLICE SCOTLAND CUNTS ALL FOR HAVING A GLASS OF WINE WITH THEIR EVENING MEAL!! THE SCOTS ARE WAITING NICOLA STURGEON, THE SCOTS WANT TO SEE REAL CHANGE, POSITIVE CHANGE FOR THE PEOPLE OF SCOTLAND NOT MORE BULLSHIT LAWS IN THE MOULD OF KENNY FUCKING ‘I WANT TO LOCK MORE SCOTS UP’ MACKASKILL FOR THOSE FUCKING POLICE SCOTLAND CUNTS TO USE TO KIDNAP AND IMPRISON THE PEOPLE OF SCOTLAND!!

Reblogged this on markcatlin3695's Blog and commented:
I’ve been homeless and begged, hearing this sort of bullshit from those supposed to help homeless people, staggers me. So no-one gives to beggars on the strength of their “sage” advice, but then it turns out the “homeless charities” don’t have the funds to help all the homeless. What happens then?

If me giving money to a homeless person stops ME from buying drink and drugs then it’s all for the greater good. I dont give anything away with a Caveat attached.
What anyone does with anything i decide to give away ceases to become my business the moment it leaves my hand. and for the record , i prefer to skip the middle man when it comes to charity, because the middle man takes his slice first. .

@Stevie This came up in work recently where a colleague saw me giving money to a guy on the street. Firstly, I said it was none of her business what I do with my money. Secondly, it’s none of my business how he spends it and thirdly, (this one she didn’t like!), why does she feel the need to comment on this at all, when I don’t comment on her inane chat about how much she’s spent at the weekend on a bloody handbag.

Gordon bennit isnt life strange keep off the grass dont feed the wildlife
strangely now its beggers onward christian soldier such is the life
of the salvation army who takes these on the street people to stack
their shelves getting monies for the bodies ops dont feed the beggers
they might not come into our stacking shelves programs strange isnt
that life now resoves around said charitys who take this blood monies
jeff3

habituation of bears by feeding them is bad, as is feeding new forest ponies, coz they ought to have plenty of free freerange food and shelter….not feeding and sheltering human beings as a common good is just plain nasty….people who hit the streets for many reasons often to escape the conditionalities imposed by charities and such like… free no strings money is provably a good thing to do, but it needs to be enough to get a person back on their feet…the only clinic i know that will aid in curing addictions and causal emotional health problems has had to shut down because of lack of support, it’s slogan was “the helping hands of kindness” run by quaker dr bob johnson…it is not the capitalist slogan “be cruel to be kind”…or “cruelty is the new love”…..these kindness is the new cruelty people should actually be protesting about the lack of proper welfare and facilitates for all those in need NOT blaming the victims of this, and ensure dr bob emotional health centers spring up all around the UK…that way their will be even more people shouting about the injustice of austerity…

Whether someone gives money to beggars is surely their own choice and should not be the position of charities or local councils to tell people what to do either way .

Personally my own experience of street beggars is near where I used to work where there was a lot of betting shops. Beggars used to directly approach people and ask for money and then go into the betting shops. There was a group of regulars who you always saw hanging around these shops so you knew where they were gonna spend the money they got off people.
However that is of course a wider social problem and charities should not be telling people not to give money to beggars because they might spend it on gambling or some other “vice”.

I once came across a guy begging in Malaysia anf felt so sorry i gave him my shoes and my shirt.
He was laid out on the pavement in front of a car dealership which sold Porsches and BMW’s and there were people looking in the showroom window as he struggled to sit up.

A life is a life, no matter how poor or how lowly………………………
We are all supposed to be born equal, i still firmly believe this and never will forget it.

When i was young, my Dad would say to me at every chance he could, “I cried because i had no shoes until i met a man who had no feet”

It gave me a kind of moral compass that would serve me well during my life, understanding that however bad i felt their would always be someone worse off.

Osborne’s Autumn statement will bring no joy to anyone i know, the spectre of death will come a lot closer to those who are really struggling.

A pound coin in the right direction will not go amiss although my role has now been reversed to that of the lowly one.
A smile may be a beam of hope from someone in despair, sanctioning somebody did not increase the job count and bedroom tax never freed up any rooms…………………..

What Johnny has highlighted, is evil, personnified………………….

The cruelty that man can inflict on man. I never imagined we would ever stoop this low in this century, but i have been proved wrong.
We are accelerating backwards at a rate never before seen in history, to the dark ages.

Good always does prevail over evil, they call it common sense, nothing more……………………….

I`d like to see churches and community centers thrown open to the homeless and not just at Christmas, if the Government are not going to provide homes then shelter is the least they can do.
Anyone who is genuinely bothered about people buying drugs can always spend a couple of minutes to buy a pastie, bag of chips or burger and hand it to that person rather than turn a blind eye.

Gumtree job adverts are primarily jobs advertised for charity fundraising, up to £10.00 per hour. I often wondered why Charities can afford such ‘good wages’. Now I know why. Very much like ‘Children in Need’ holding on to 80 million pounds. Why?
I don’t give a shite what the poor and homeless do with my pennies, its fuck all anyway and fuck all to do with me. I only wish I could give more.

I stopped buying the Big Issue some time ago, because the last one I bought contained not one but two articles praising workfare. Of course I give money to homeless people, but I don’t buy the magazine.

I admit I do occasionally buy a Big Issue from a seller with a regular pitch, only because it cheers him; but I then give him a bank note and tell him to keep the change. What he does with it is up to him, as I perceive him as an adult able to make his own decisons. I know that his needs, of whatever type, are genuine; and it really is a rubbish way of making a few pounds maybe.

Though it’s over priced and not even a good publication; and, yes, it is unacceptable that it then is used by John Bird to say how people shouldn’t give money to Big Issue sellers or others in obvious need, and how they shouldn’t be allowed to stay on benefits, as it makes them dependent – being said by those hugely dependent on various sorts of public fundings for their own comfortable lifestyles.

No charity gets anything from me while there’s anyone there making more than my small income (or making use of ‘volunteers’ from the Job Centre), which excludes nearly all of them; while it’s the chuggers begging on the streets for people to sign up to having charities dipping regularly into their bank accounts who are the nuisances who should be cleared away.

I don’t agree with any charities telling you to give money to them rather than those they are supposed to be helping, but many years ago I saw a tv programme about a woman in England who was a drug addict and who told the tv crew (and the viewers) about how she would approach people in stations and claim she was stranded and needed the money for the fare home, and because she had a baby with her they would sympathise with her and give her money, which she would spend on drugs – she showed the tv crew (and the viewers) her arm, just in case we doubted it. Presumably she was paid for her story, but unfortunately it spoiled things for her as it was broadcast throughout the country. I later encountered her (and her unfortunate baby) in Scotland, as she must have thought tv hadn’t reached Scotland – I didn’t tell her it had, but I didn’t give her any money either.

My ‘Social’ landlord has just signed up with Experian, with support from the Big Issue Investment Group, to pass all tenants details to build a database of tenant credit history. I never remember signing my tenancy agreement stipulation that my personal details could be sold to 3rd parties. Greedy Bastards.

You have given your permission though. They probably gave you some mile long tenancy agreeement to sign that you never bothered to read as well as a Data Protection Act waiver just so that “they could call an ambulance if something bad happened to you”… and you just kind of like, signed, just like everyone else cos it’s only the housing asssociation, what nefarious deeds could the possibly get up to… 😉

All three main parties were told back in the early 1980s that there was a massive shortage in social housing looming, the three main parties (on purpose) did nothing!. The reason was to push house prices higher and ever higher, to make people think they were going to make their fortune with ever increasing prices, many were stupid enough to think it would never come to an end, many were encouraged to buy second houses to rent out to provide a pension plan for themselves at the expense of the poorest and disadvantage amongst us!.

Between the years 1982-2007 there were three, I will repeat that “THREE” council houses built in Scotland, most of those years we had a Labour government.

annos
“But this is small change. Let’s talk about the real money. The Westminster government claims to champion an entrepreneurial society, of wealth creators and hard-working families, but the real rewards and incentives are for rent. The power and majesty of the state protects the patrimonial class. A looped and windowed democratic cloak barely covers the corrupt old body of the nation. Here peaceful protestors can still be arrested under the 1361 Justices of the Peace Act. Here, the Royal Mines Act 1424 gives the Crown the right to all the gold and silver in Scotland(6). Here the Remembrancer of the City of London sits behind the Speaker’s chair in the House of Commons(7), to protect the entitlements of a Corporation that pre-dates the Norman conquest. This is an essentially feudal nation”.http://www.monbiot.com/2014/12/02/breaking-the-silence/

Reblogged this on Beastrabban’s Weblog and commented:
Mr Void here presents the case that the homeless charities are trying to dissuade people from giving money directly to beggars on the streets, not because they are genuinely afraid that they will use the money to buy booze or drugs, but simply because the charities themselves want to be the only recipients of charitable giving and are trying to remove them as awkward competition. This is all too believable. Mr Void himself has pointed out the massive salaries enjoyed by the chief executives of these charities.

He also mentions that Bath is particularly keen to discourage begging as this threatens to damage the town socially and economically. This is no doubt why other towns, like Bristol, have also adopted the same policy. A few years ago there was an item on the local BBC news, Points West, in which someone from the local authority or a homeless charity warned Bristolians against giving to beggars. This was accompanied by a poster campaign. Johnny Void also reported a little while ago that in London, at least, legislation had been passed to clear the beggars out of the centres of the borough. This gave the illusion that the capital didn’t have a homeless problem, while in fact the number of homeless people had grown.
As for Bath being an easy city to beg in, I honestly don’t know about that. When I worked there in the 1990s, the town did have a sizable crustie population, and it was supposedly on one of the routes used by the New Age travellers as they moved to and from Glastonbury. You would see crowds of them gathered by Marchant’s Passage, a shopping mall, just by the bus station. The town does have a sizable and submerged underclass, in contrast to its image as a town populated entirely by well-heeled Jane Austen aficionados. This underclass is unusual in that, unlike in other cities, it exists cheek by jowl with the rich and affluent, and so both ends of the economic spectrum are on glaring display.

like i say the sound is working my end…
have you seen the “days of hope” series of 4 films by allen and loach..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u019DvYjY4 they are fresh and as contemporary as when they were made in 1975…

awo
we all dream of freedom when we are not free…caught betwixt a rock and a hard place, not a pleasant place @ all…..the land is ours…diggers and dreamers…leveller’s…covenanter’s….the tales of robin hood…the holy grail…why does a movement start, it starts because of oppression…oppression causes depression…no where else to go, the dream of dignity shattered…mining, steel, factory, mill, farming, and industrial, towns cities villages, decimated by savagery all to make a buck…
blocking symptoms does not cause cure…symptoms always lead to root cause…addictions are a symptom of a bankrupt culture…
an addiction is a craving beyond what nature provides, it is caused by deprivation(s), (neglect)…not deliberate neglect of self, but by being abused…i’ve never met an addict, who intended to become addicted, they were looking for solutions, something to take the pain away…which is what human beings do and are gifted to do with our massive brains, that have become gummed up with the shit of life, and consequential sufferings…ironically trying to comply with cultural demands… just in now, timely for this post… https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/12/why-should-we-be-beggars/ ….freedom come all ye…

The only ray of light in this horrible campaign is that it was clearly made necessary by the innate decency of most people, who follow the instinct to help homeless people directly, and will no doubt continue to do so despite the charities’ self-interested moans.

“As befits his taste for only the very best of things, Russell Brand’s new home in the Hollywood Hills is a sumptuous affair of sunlit rooms and period vaulted ceilings that hark back to the golden days of the movies.
Owned by Laurence Olivier in the Thirties, it has its own cinema, plus five bedrooms and five bathrooms (a lower bath-to-bed ratio is absolute social death in such a wealthy enclave).
Of an evening, Brand can recline amid the scent of oleander trees on a candlelit balcony, with its own outside bar offering stunning views of the twinkling city below. As well as an estimated £15 million in the bank, he became the proud owner of the white-painted Los Angeles pad earlier this month.
So how does this fit in with his ranting rallying cry on Newsnight last week for a ‘socialist egalitarian’ revolution, an end to ‘massive economic disparity’ and belief that ‘profit is a filthy word’?
One suspects that last assertion, however, might come as something of a surprise to the ‘high- net-worth individuals’ that Brand is currently trying to charm into investing in his new film. After all, as well as offering the potential for big returns on their stakes in the movie, Brand’s company is also promising, I have learned, that most unsocialist of sweeteners — massive tax breaks of up to 60 per cent — for those willing to put up their cash.”

This will be near where Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie live/d in a big gorgeous glass fronted house. We were over there a couple of years ago and spotted Brad and Angelina out in their drive. Before we could stop gawping they had invited us in for a few refreshments…. well, it was a very hot day 😀

As long as we live in a capitalist system, we live in a world of corruption and hypocrisy, other political and economic systems have not fared much better either, not everyone on the planet can sit beneath an oleander tree whether they have the money or not, whether we have this political system or some other.
We could have a fairer system that does put a roof over everyones head, clothes on their back, food in their belly and money for a few luxuries, but there is always going to be inequality in where people are housed and how idyllic their life can be because of hurricanes, earthquakes etc.or the job they are expected to undertake. I don’t think someone showing their face as a guest on a popular chat show should be paid astronomical amounts while nurses in the health service find their funding cut for treating the sick and their pay increases a fraction of those from the celebrity or ruling class.

I am detracting from the fact that those that are in a position to have a voice, usually speak more for themselves than for anyone else and benefit more than the ‘charitable cases’ they purport to help.

There should be no need for homelessness or charitable cases, everyone should have a free dwelling place, putting an end to land and property acquisiton.

Russell Brand doesn’t like speaking for himself at all it seems – correction, he doesn’t like speaking OF himself in relation to his wealth. Perhaps he could negotiate with the landlords and buy the Estate himself and give the tenants there a fair rent, if he feels so strongly about it.

Who do you know that has not profitted from property investment?
The chancellors know where their bread is buttered and help the wealthy acquire more wealth through profitable acquisitions, that is who Osborne has reduced stamp duty for, not the general public who would still find it difficult to get onto the property ladder.
All designed to give the property market a boost for those that want to buy or those that want to turn their assets into cash and sell the properties that may be past their sell by date to some unsuspecting buyer, while reducing revenue for the treasury with favourable stamp duty.
First quantative easing and fiddled house pricing to keep the profiteers from defaulting on any property loans they may have aquired – now reduced stamp duty.
While the poor have increased costs in rent, bedroom tax, council tax etc.

Just showed the poster only to my 10 year old and said “what do you think of this poster?’. He said “It’s wrong because it is saying all homeless people are alcoholics and drug addicts.” Enough said. Brilliant article.

sooner have money used for prevention rather than cure… Not in the health service where money is wasted on useless preventative proceedures and nothing in the pot for emergencies when preventions have failed.

An organisation (which we call a ‘provider’) will:
find you your work placement(s) of up to 30 hours per week for up 26 weeks, and provide up to 10 hours of supported job search each week, over a period of up to 30 weeks.

FOR PROFIT HUMAN Trafficking within the UK, from the DWP/JCP to WORKFARE PROVIDER-Learn Direct Scotland to PLACE OF LABOUR.

Over 9000 of the homeless are ex-servicemen and women, and account for over 10% of rough sleepers. Initially sucked into the governments funnel of ‘see the world’ and ‘learn a trade’ as economic no hopers, then discharged into civvy life with little or no rehabilitation, having experienced god knows what. The charities are wrong to assume homeless are in the main substance abusers. Some are, but this masks the underlying despair, depression of our fellow humans. Hot food, hot drinks, a few quid -and a chat goes a long way.

Special interest subdivisions of the homeless should be avoided as it encourages the politics of the deserving and undeserving poor. Already this can be found in social housing where ex-servicemen and women are supposedly given priority, thank them for their service but civvy life is civvy life and the same rules apply to all.

“MAXIMUS WILL NOW BE EXPECTED TO STEAL THE BENEFITS FROM OUR FORGOTTEN, LIMBLESS,MENTALLY TORTURED HEROES”

…………….but see what ATOS did;

Daily Mail online 1 June 2013

A record number of wounded war veterans have been denied disability benefits in the past year
after undergoing tests carried out by the Government’s controversial assessment company.

Hundreds of injured ex-soldiers are being declared fit for work by Atos Healthcare in spite of
physical and mental injuries they suffered in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Last night, the Royal British Legion (RBL) announced a 72 per cent annual rise in former
soldiers having their applications to receive Employment Support Allowance (ESA) turned down.
Several hundred wounded personnel were denied the benefit on the basis of physical
examinations conducted by Atos, according to the RBL.

The company is contracted by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to assess benefits
claimants’ capability to work.

In one case, Lance Corporal Mark Dryden, 35 – a former member of the Royal Regiment of
Fusiliers who, after an explosion in Iraq, lost his right arm and the full use of his left – was asked
by Atos assessors if he was left or right-handed. He is now taking his case against the DWP to a
benefits tribunal.

That case, and others, have led to accusations that Atos Healthcare is under intense pressure to
produce assessments that enable the Government to reject benefits claims.

Servicemen suffering from the mental scars of combat also complain that they have been turned
down for disability benefits.

Many injured troops have also described having to undergo demeaning physical tests by the
firm.

staggered at the number of replies to this. will read more tomorrow as i cant keep eyes open right now . need my bed. (sounds terribly selfish i know when you think of those poor devils on the streets with nowhere to lay their heads.
)…… i lived in Bedford for a few years… came back to york shire 17yrs ago., there was one homeless charity down there that ill never forget. cant remember its name but it seemed that it was only homeless youngsters mainly that it helped. and one of the rules they had to agree to before they were given a room at their hostel was that they attended THEIR church every Sunday.was a evangelical one. i went a few times myself. something badly wrong there though i,and others,outside their clique, couldn’t put our fingers on what it was. but what hostel makes that kind of rule anyway?

The homeless rough sleepers exist in a nation that does not feed its starving, risen 70 per cent as they are since 2010, nor provide growing social housing, but tax the poor out of a roof over their head and bread on the table.

We have high streets full of empty shops and empty flats above them, where councils put posters in the shop windows with fake customers in a fake business.

And we have huge numbers of empty terrace streets, all boarded up, costing councils money in security.

So I despair about The Greens not putting up on billboards throughout England and Wales that they would save lives with a majority governnemtn in 2015, by their unique policy of ending all this cruel ever reducing and lost benefits regime, whilst raising national debt on benefits admin by the billions:

– universal and automatic Citizen Income, non-withdrawable
to the level of the basic tax allowance.

– Full State Pension to all citizens, irregardless of National Insurance contribution / credit history, mostly lost due to benefit rule changes and early retirement in lieu of redundancy under the massive austerity job losses.

The Greens offer tens of millions the end of the threat to their lives from starvaton and hypothermia.

So why are not these new and unique policies more widely told by The Greens, please?

mr r
the passion for indyscot remains unabated imv stronger than ever…but there is little anyone can do atm….except do what we need to do in prep for the 2015ge…one could argue that the snp masterfully put us in this position, but imo 45/55 is too slim a ‘victory’ for that…cast your mind back, we were all suffering campaign fatigue, this whole campaign has been grueling….
cheated not defeated…we are the change….http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyJmDcQf-qU

Each department is pushing for the highest suicide rates on our run up to the festive time of goodwill to all men, though both seem unaware of this fact……………
That’s right. murder of the people is the only agenda they follow.

Pressure is starting to build from a totally new outsider, the Probation Service who took their first trophy’s only recently.

Strangely, each department vehemently denies their involvement, but you can’t kid, a kidder, as the saying goes.

My money is still on the DWP.

With the help of the Freedom of Information Commissioner and the Judiciary and Police, all firmly in their pockets, coroners will be working overtime to manage , “A BLIP”, as Grayling eloquently described it……………

The DWP consulted closely with an advisory group of independent experts in health, social care
and disability throughout the design of the criteria, to ensure that they are clear and that they
allow priority in the benefit to be focused on those who need it most.
From the outset the Department tasked the advisory group to work in conjunction with the
Department to design a consistent, transparent and fair assessment. The group was not asked
to design an assessment that would provide savings; they were asked to help us design a robust
assessment that would ensure the benefit is targeted on those who face the greatest barriers to
participating in society.

……………THE TRUTH

13. UnumProvident is actively engaged with the Government, policy-makers and large employers to share best practice and to see where our systems and approaches might be applied more widely. We are currently working with the Department of Work and Pensions on this, and have had discussions with officials in HM Treasury and the Prime Minister’s office. We have met with officials to help better understand the nature of the IB casebook, and to discuss how our commercial experience and expertise might be more widely applied. In addition, we will shortly be supporting the National Employment Panel in its work on the New Deal for Disabled People through a secondment of one of our senior managers.

22. It is UnumProvident’s experience that most disabled people are capable of some work. We would contend that this is the case even where those people are already in receipt of incapacity benefit. What is key is that the individual has an expectation of a return to work. In this respect, the terminology and eligibility criteria for claiming incapacity benefit are particularly unhelpful. First, the very term “Incapacity Benefit” suggests that it is a benefit that is paid to those who are incapable of work. This is both derogatory and obstructive. In fact, most disabled people are capable of some work, in some capacity or other, so why label them as being “incapable”?

25. UnumProvident would propose that IB should be retained for those disabled people who are genuinely incapable of undertaking any work whatsoever. The remainder should be transferred to a form of Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) which is sufficiently flexible to recognise that they have limited capacity to work. JSA claimants are required to look for work, and indeed are supported in that process by JCP. This simple administrative move sets the expectation of a return to work both for the individual and also for potential employers

“The only country that releases information that not many pensioners died of cold nearly a year ago”

……………..the reason that this has been in the media is just a sad excuse for the impending rise in hpothermia related deaths that are to come in the following cold spell over winter…………..
If heating or eating was a problem for pensioners a few years ago, then it will be more severe now, given that bills have rocketed and food prices gone through the roof.

What dirty trick will the government do to our pensioners next?
They have been filling the papers with shit about how well off pensioners are nowadays. This signals an attack on their wellbeing, they are itching to push them into the cemetery faster……………………..

Our pensioners are some of the worst treat in the EU, in fact there was a documentary on Swedish tv highlighting how we pay our retired persons peanuts.

The norm is usually around 30,000, thirty thousand old people will die, and for what?
Meanwhile we are shafted by the energy companies who refuse to reduce bills even though wholesale prices have dropped………..

Even the regulators have a conflict of interest, their members paid for by the very companies they are supposed to regulate.
WHAT A CUSHTY SET UP……………………………….

russel brand grew up in a council flat to a single mother he later became a heroin addict ,he,s had his fair share of shit like the rest of us but unlike most celebrities at least he,s giving back with support like him or loath him he is a least doing something I don’t see anything comeing from the politicals ,lol

If Russell Brand has genuinely boot-strapped himself from the gutter and isn’t just another middle-class kid who has found a niche 😀 then you have to give him his dues. He could easily still be sat in a council flat on the dole, and where would his media profile be then? He would be reduced to posting on the Void to make his voice heard maybe using BLOCK CAPITALS to get his message out a bit louder. He is in a no-win situation! Anyway, if the ‘left’ is reduced to attacking Russell Brand as if he is some evil entity a la IDS and his dwp sanctioning operative its a sad day. How many benefit claimants has Russell Brand rendered destitute, tipped over the edge into suicide. Who gives a flying fuck if he has a few bob in the bank – didn’t stop him wearing a ripped T-shirt to the Parliamentary Committee meeting. And what about that non-entity Richard Bacon, who is also moving to LA, it’s not like he ever mentions it 😀 And don’t even mention that tosser Nicky Campbell 😀

That’s right, Russell Brand became a heroin addict because he feels very strongly about things – nothing to do with being an idiot. Comparing him to people who also have a few bob/million in the bank and who don’t “speak out” in support is similarly idiotic. With the money he has he could probably buy the estate and GIVE it to the residents. Problem solved but that would involve action which is often expensive, and talk is cheap. Messiah complex? Perhaps. Talent? Not a trace. His new book apparently advises people to not pay their mortgages and he thinks profit is a dirty word. Where do the profits of his book go?

PS – And why would anyone care whether he wears a ripped T-shirt or not, whether to the Parliamentary Committee meaning or to attend Buckingham Palace – where he will probably get an OBE some day, just like all the other talentless non-entities who are currently called celebrities? Just because he grew up in a council estate doesn’t excuse his hypocrisy now that he is rich.

my god…the bitterness,lol..good on russel brand..good to him ,he,s got millions in the bank …good..well done he,s made it ..he by using his talents and intelligence climbed out of heroin addiction got away from poor street ..fantastic ..if you have grown up on poor street than that’s what you want..to get away from there…that’s what we all want to get away from poverty and hard ship..at least he is giving back ..well done that man well done Russell xxxxx.

You should read the lyrics to the song “hungry years”, not all that glitters is gold, but trying to alleviate or eradicate poverty for everyone not just yourself is more worthwhile, so we should applaud the fact that he is speaking out about the injustices in life, even though as I stated earlier, either directly or indirectly it could be more beneficial for him to do so, than for us, with this shower of charlatans in power or with any of the others waiting to claim the crown either.

I heard from Slovakia homeless people a drink numbs the cold on a freezing day on the streets and what else hope have they got seriously? At least it provides fleeting comfort
If there was more services for detox etc then maybe they would save done people and furthermore if the problem was tackled before it gets so bad then there would be less problems overall

snuff being filmed of off the system homeless. also being used for illegal clinical trials. There even filming them dying before they get them to court at p-q units south Wales favourites abuse them call them I’ll then kill me make money from footage too. We’ll done conservatives. none cult running nhs and feds hostels you name the hate crime scum they sent videos to my news feed of others they have killed to threaten me….murderers visual an ties get them out …

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